So after four hours of Spanish classes at the school Corazon Maya, Raquel and I helped the family we’re staying with deliver chocolate to a buyer across the lake in a town called Panajachel (it can also be seen in the map further below). The family we’re staying with makes 16 different flavors of chocolate bars from all natural organic ingredients. The drool is rolling off my bottom lip right now just thinking about trying another.
The process starts with Diego, the father of the house, getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to Chela, a city a couple hours away. There he buys cacao beans and blocks of panela (brown sugar cane), which he brings back by bus to San Pedro. Chocolate is made with an ample amount of these two ingredients. Over the years Diego has fine-tuned a unique creation process. First, the cacao beans are roasted over an open fire and las cascaras (shells) are removed by dropping batches of the roasted cacao onto a piece of sheet metal that lies below on the ground (the shells blow off in the wind when repeatedly dropped from about 5 feet up). After the shells are removed from the cacao beans are taken to the molino (mill), where they are ground into a thick paste.
The next main ingredient, panela (brown sugar cane), comes in blocks about half the size of a lunchbox. These are cut down with big knives into a more manageable consistency which is then melted down over an open fire into a liquid syrup. When the ground cacao returns from the molino, it is poured into the panela and stirred by hand until the right consistency is achieved. The combination of these two ingredients results in a pure dark chocolate and I can honestly say that I’ve never tasted anything quite like it... rich, sweet, and extremely capable of breaking a number of sweet-toothed people out there.
Now, because this chocolate is so potent, only a small amount is set aside as a special batch that will actually be made into bars with the label puro or pure. The rest goes through a process of adding milk and another special ingredient - which a will leave out of this blog to keep safe la receta (recipe) of the master chef Diego (I’ve also left out a couple smaller parts of the baking process). Several times, Diego shared parts of the story of his chocolate making venture with me. Including how he goes through the process of choosing the right cacao beans by tasting them first, how he perfected the receta through trial and error, and how he once almost sold his receta to a Panamanian cacao farmer. Over 11 years, Diego has gone from 4 to 16 flavors and his product is the one and only patented chocolate in Guatemala.
So with 800 bars, Diego’s wife Angela, sons Julio and Odvan, as well as Raquel hopped in a small van to get to the dock in San Pedro, where we caught a small boat which took about a half an hour to get to Panajachel. When we left the dock in Panajachel Angela tried to pay the regular price of 15 Quetzales for each of us, but the boat captain insisted that Rae and I had to pay 25 Quetzales because we were extranjeros/foreigners. This really upset the family (and me, cause I’m so cheap), but I told Agela afterwards it was ok and that we were cool with paying extra.
This seemingly simple encounter wore on me though afterwards for another reason. It wasn’t really cause I had to come up with extra money (1 dollar = about 8 quetzales). I realized that what really bugged me was that Rae and I were seen and treated as being different from the rest of the family even though we were beginning to see ourselves as helping out just like everyone else. I’m steady learning that despite my Spanish getting better it’ll never be good enough to separate me from a certain type of “otherness” that comes with being an outsider. Even those who might have mastered the language perfect here are still labelled as different. Though I don’t like it, I’m coming to accept it.
Here, it’s somewhat more tough to acclimate even with Spanish because Tzu’tujil culture (what we call Maya) is still so strong. The language is the first one spoken in the house and people use it when they don’t want to be understood by outsiders who know Spanish well. I know of only one French women in the town who’s mastered it, but she was still described to me as the French lady who lives here by a couple people.
Still, the Hernandez family has made us feel so welcome and has been so hospitable to Rae and me. Maybe that’s what hurt both the family and us when we were charged extra for the ferry. Diego, Angela, and their kids are treating us as siblings in the family and a bond has been created in only a couple of short weeks. Though I’m reluctant to call people I’m staying with my mother, father, or siblings (you seem to be encouraged to this with home-stays) I really do feel like a part of the family. As usual I tend to avoid the touristy places and people, and try not to speak english, so this helps. I’ve spoken a bit more english with Rae along for this trip (cause she didn’t speak any Spanish when she got here). However, I think it’s the strong bond Rae and me have, which mirrors those of the family here, that has made the transition seem so seamless. Who knows...?
Wow, I’ve rambled on a bit here, so I’ll wrap it up. After dropping off the 800 piece order in Panajachel we grabbed lunch in the local market and walked back to the dock. At the dock there were a group of tourists were getting into the same boat as us. Some of the girls in the group became upset because the conductors couldn’t get all their friends in the same boat. They started complaining in another language (not Spanish, but I will leave the country unnamed) and I was quickly reminded that even though we were paying the same to get back to San Pedro, there was something that separated Rae and me from these obnoxious extranjeros.
We got back to San Pedro worn out and drained. The next day we caught another one of Julio’s fútbol game (we lost 0-2). Still, we had a good time there with Odvan and the two Nicolas’ (neighbor kids who are always around the house to play, go swimming, eat, etc.). Rae mentioned to me that going to Julio’s games were a lot like going to our actual brother or sister’s sporting events in the states. I had already been thinking the same and readily agreed.
Oct. 1, 2009 Post-Op: Wondering what it looks like under there, but I'm suppose to wait a couple days before I remove the dressings.
Oct. 3, 2009 Dressing Removal: The thing didn't look as nasty as I thought it was going to look. Sleeping over the previous two days was real rough. I could hardly move without pain and even laying down hurt. To see the wound look this clean was kind of surprising. All the stitches are under the skin with a couple pieces of tape holding the end threads down and out of the way so I don't accidentally pull on them.
Oct. 17, 2009 Getting Ready: Prepping for the Mj Tribute Party coming up. The stitches had pretty much fallen out and I pushed the shoulder farther than I should have at the party (click pic for egg). Just one of the things I did to draw out the recovery. Blah!
Sept. 27, 2009 One Year Later: It's been exactly one year since the bike accident that brought me here. The metal plate is clearly visible (I'm kind of pushing it out there though) and not only can you feel it in there, but if you press hard enough you can feel the screws poking out too. I haven't recovered 100% yet. Though my range of motion is back, I still have numbness down in my arm and pain in my shoulder when lifting heavy. Plus my neck muscles are still a bit tight. I'm sick of having that crap in there and hope to lose some of these problems after the metal's out. Being bionic isn't as fun as it seems in the movies (ie. Will Smith in "I, Robot"). Maybe if my arm were actually more powerful then it wouldn't be so bad, but this stuff in there is NOT cool.
Sept. 29, 2010 Metal Out: In a bit of pain, mostly in my neck, but nothing a few Ibuprofen can't help. I'm feeling good to have that stuff out my body! Plus, the numbness in my arm is already gone, so hoping after some more rehab I can fully get back.
Thanks for all the prayers and positive regards everyone! I will bike safer from now on... well, when I get back to riding. I'm trying to take a few months off to let the bone fill in the holes and give the soft tissue some time to re-attach before trying to get back on it full speed.
